The Swedish Pioneer Historical Society's First Thirty Years

THE SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL
SOCIETY'S FIRST THIRTY YEARS
ERIC L U ND
P r e s i d e n t , S w e d i s h P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e ty
Eighteen thousand persons jammed the Chicago Stadium the
night of June 4, 1948, to commemorate the centennial of the
arrival of the first Swedes in the Midwest.
"President Truman, Prince Bertil, the Archbishop (of Upp­sala)
and a host of others spoke," Gösta Oldenburg, retired long­time
Consul General of Sweden in Chicago, recalled recently.1
"But the one that cast a spell, that the others listened to, was
C a r l . "
Carl—Carl Sandburg— didn't speak until after the President's
party left at 11:30 p.m. He spoke until 1:15 a.m., remembers
Vilas Johnson—and not a soul left during his speech.2
" C a r l was not much of a guitarist, or a singer," recalls Olden­burg,
who now lives in New York City. "But his personality
cast a spell. He was a great performer."
Johnson, retired partner in Arthur Andersen & Company,
and a friend of Sandburg, was chairman of the Chicago Com­mittee
for the centennial.
There were Swedes in the Midwest earlier, but they did not
begin arriving in number until the late 1840s, settling in places
like Andover and Bishop Hill, Illinois; New Sweden, Iowa;
Lindsborg, Kansas; Chisago and Isanti counties, Minnesota; and
Pine Lake, Wisconsin; forming "Swede Towns" in cities like
Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
A centennial observance was originally suggested in 1940 at
the eightieth convention of the Augustana Lutheran Church in
Rock Island, and the Swedish Pioneer Centennial Association
was created after a meeting December 1, 1945, in Chicago.8 Dr.
Conrad Bergendoff of Augustana College was named chairman.
Banquets, festivals, and other programs were held in May and
June, 1948, throughout the Midwest, and Chicago's was the
biggest.
235
Two months after the Stadium rally, in August, 1948, Vilas
Johnson and others met to talk about continuing the interest the
centennial had sparked. The result is the Swedish Pioneer His­torical
Society, which on October 15, marks the thirtieth an­niversary
of its nonprofit incorporation under the laws of the
State of Illinois—"Established to record the achievements of the
Swedish Pioneers."
The name was Johnson's, the slogan Bergendoff's.4 A Swedish
Historical Society of America existed from 1905 to 1934, when
it disappeared and its library was acquired by the Minnesota
Historical Society.5 Johnson's model was the more successful
Norwegian-American Historical Association founded in 1925.6
Johnson became first president of the new society and Carl
Sandburg was named honorary chairman, a post he held until
his death in 1967. ("Of course," he wrote Johnson in 1948, "I
will be your Honorary Chairman. . . . How proud my Mother
would be. Her boy, honorary chairman, honorary chairman. . . " 7
Nils William Olsson, now executive director of the Swedish
Council of America, who had been executive secretary of the
centennial association, took on similar duties for the society.
Johnson envisioned a goal of 5,000 members,8 and while the
society has approached only half that, its accomplishments have
been many.
In July, 1950, it published the first issue (a modest 32 pages)
of the SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, and the follow­ing
December it published its first book, A P i o n e e r i n N o r t h w e s t
A m e r i c a , 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 5 8 : T h e M e m o i r s of G u s t a f U n o n i u s , Part I,
translated by J . O. Backlund and edited by Nils William Olsson.
This issue of the QUARTERLY is the 114th, including a 20-year
Index in 1971 and a special double issue in 1974. The QUARTERLY
up to this issue has published 6,012 pages of articles, letters and
reminiscences, as well as bibliography, book reviews, and news
items, and has been called "the most important and continuing
source of information about Swedes in North America."9 It is
cited frequently in books as a reference.
A second volume of the Unonius memoirs was published in
1960, and since then nine more books have carried the society
imprint. They include such contributions to immigration schol­arship
as H . Arnold Barton's L e t t e r s F r o m t h e P r o m i s e d L a n d :
236
S w e d e s in A m e r i c a , 1 8 4 0 - 1 9 1 4 (1975), Paul Elmen's W h e a t F l o ur
M e s s i a h : E r i c J a n s s o n of B i s h o p H i l l (1976), and Sture Lind¬
mark's S w e d i s h A m e r i c a , 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 3 2 (1971).
In 1979, the society will publish an English translation of Lars
Ljungmark's D e n S t o r a U t v a n d r i n g e n (The Great Emigration)
under the title, T h e S w e d i s h E x o d u s , and in 1980, in conjunction
with the Swedish Council of America, O. R. Landelius' S w e d i sh
P l a c e N a m e s i n A m e r i c a . The 1978 book is P e r s p e c t i v e s o n
S w e d i s h E m i g r a t i o n , proceedings of a conference at the Uni­versity
of Minnesota, Duluth, edited by Nils Hasselmo. C l i p p er
S h i p a n d C o v e r e d W a g o n , a collection of essays from the QUAR­TERLY,
is being published by Arno Press.
Over the years, the annual meeting of the society has grown
from an evening program, to a dinner program, to an afternoon
and dinner program, and there have been various special events.
Sandburg spoke again at a Swedish Pioneer rally on June 6, 1953,
at Lane Technical High School, attended by 2,000 persons.1 0 A m ­bassador
Gunnar Jarring was the guest at a tenth anniversary
dinner February 1, 1959, and Wilhelm Moberg, author of T h e
E m i g r a n t s , U n t o a G o o d L a n d and T h e L a s t L e t t e r H o m e , spoke
at the annual dinner January 29, 1966, on "Why I Wrote the
Novel About Swedish Emigrants" ("The reason is very simple:
I wanted to write about my relatives in America") . 1 1
A flight program was begun in 1960, and to date the society
has sponsored thirty-three charter and group flights to Sweden.
A Swedish Committee was formed in 1963,12 and in 1978 the
society counted some 100 members in Sweden as well as mem­bers
in forty-three states and the District of Columbia. (The so­ciety
became truly international early this year when Yasushi
Ueda, a doctoral candidate at Doshisha University in Kyoto,
Japan, became a student member.)
One of the society's first aims in 1948 was "to collect and pre­serve
documents and general data of historical interest," but
other projects took precedence until the early 1960s, when an
active archives committee set to work.1 3 In 1966 in the QUARTER­LY,
Selma Jacobson (current archives curator) reported receipt
of the largest collection to date, the papers of Carl Hjalmar
Lundquist, former assistant corporation counsel of the City of
Chicago.1 4 In 1968, North Park College (where the society has
237
had its offices since 1950) made space available for the archives
in the basement of Nyvall Hall, and it was opened to the public
the following April.
As the society completes its first thirty years, one of the goals
is better and larger quarters for the archives. Other goals are
increased membership, greater financial support, and expanded
program.
Vilas Johnson, who served as president until 1954, was hon­ored
at the thirtieth annual meeting in April as the recipient
of the society's first Sandburg Medal. Other presidents have
been the late E. Einar Andersson,1 6 editor and publisher of
S v e n s k a A m e r i k a n a r e n - T r i b u n e n ; Dr. Bergendoff; Franklin D.
Scott, emeritus professor of history at Northwestern University;
Wesley M. Westerberg, former president of Kendall College, and
Paul A . Varg, professor of history at Michigan State University.
Dr. Varg was first editor of the QUARTERLY, followed by the late
E. Gustav Johnson,1 0 Dr. Scott and the present editor, Arnold
Barton.
NOTES
' In a letter to the writer, March 8, 1978.
2 Vilas Johnson, "Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967: An Appreciation," S w e d i sh
P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l Q u a r t e r l y (hereafter SPHQ), Vol. XVIII, No. 4 (October
1967), pp. 187-193.
3 Conrad Bergendoff, "The Beginnings of the Swedish Pioneer Centen­nial,"
SPHQ, Vol. X X , No. 4 (October 1969), pp. 161-169. See also Vilas
Johnson, "Reminiscences of the Swedish Pioneer Centennial," in the same
issue, pp. 170-179 and Per Sandberg, "The Swedish Pioneer Centennial
1948—Three Decades Later," Swedish Council News, Vol. I, No. 2 (Spring,
1978).
4 Selma Jacobson, "Twenty Years of History, 1948-1968," SPHQ, Vol. X X ,
No. 4 (October 1969), pp. 180-191.
"Roy Swanson, "Our Predecessors," SPHQ, Vol. I, No. 1 (July 1950),
pp. 12-21. For a bibliography, see E. Gustav Johnson, "Articles Published
by the Swedish Historical Society of America, 1905-1934," SPHQ, Vol.
XIV, No. 3 (July 1963), pp. 127-135.
"Jacobson, op. cit. For a history of the N. A. H. A., see Odd S. Lovoll
and Kenneth O. Bjork, T h e N o r w e g i a n - A m e r i c a n H i s t o r i c a l A s s o c i a t i o n,
1 9 2 5 - 1 9 7 5 (Northfield, Minn.: N. A. H. A., 1975).
'Johnson, op. cit.
8 Vilas Johnson, " A Challenge to Americans of Swedish Background,"
SPHQ, Vol. I, No. 1 (July 1950), pp. 3-8.
6 Alan Swanson, S w e d e s i n N o r t h A m e r i c a (Philadelphia: Balch Institute
Reading Lists No. 22, 1976). For more about the Q u a r t e r l y , see H. Arnold
Barton, "The Editor's Corner: Twenty-Five Years—One Hundred Issues,"
SPHQ, Vol. XXVI, No. 3 (July 1975), pp. 143-144.
" " T h e Swedish Pioneer Rally," SPHQ, Vol. IV, No. 4 (October 1953),
pp. 25-27.
238
"Wilhelm Moberg, "Why I Wrote the Novel About Swedish Emigrants,"
SPHQ, Vol. XVII, No. 2 (April 1966), pp. 63-77.
"Report of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting, SPHQ, Vol. XIV, No. 2
(April 1963), pp. 94-96.
"Report of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting, SPHQ, Vol. XVI, No. 2
(April 1965), pp. 106-110.
1 4 Selma Jacobson, "Pioneer Archives Receives Valuable Collection,"
SPHQ, Vol. XVII, No. 3 (July 1966), pp. 154-156.
1 5 " E . Einar Andersson: In Memoriam," SPHQ, Vol. XII, No. 3 (July
1961), pp. 87-88.
1 6 H. Arnold Barton, " E . Gustav Johnson: In Memoriam," SPHQ, Vol.
XXVI, No. 2 (April 1975), pp. 117-118. See also Paul Eimen, " E . Gust,"
p. 119, and E. Gustav Johnson, " A Scholarly Testament," pp. 120-127, in
the same issue.
This article appeared in a feature edition of the Norwegian-
American newspaper, V i n l a n d (Evanston, 111.), entitled "A
Salute to Sweden," on 13 April 1978. It is reprinted here by
permission.
239

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THE SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL
SOCIETY'S FIRST THIRTY YEARS
ERIC L U ND
P r e s i d e n t , S w e d i s h P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e ty
Eighteen thousand persons jammed the Chicago Stadium the
night of June 4, 1948, to commemorate the centennial of the
arrival of the first Swedes in the Midwest.
"President Truman, Prince Bertil, the Archbishop (of Upp­sala)
and a host of others spoke," Gösta Oldenburg, retired long­time
Consul General of Sweden in Chicago, recalled recently.1
"But the one that cast a spell, that the others listened to, was
C a r l . "
Carl—Carl Sandburg— didn't speak until after the President's
party left at 11:30 p.m. He spoke until 1:15 a.m., remembers
Vilas Johnson—and not a soul left during his speech.2
" C a r l was not much of a guitarist, or a singer," recalls Olden­burg,
who now lives in New York City. "But his personality
cast a spell. He was a great performer."
Johnson, retired partner in Arthur Andersen & Company,
and a friend of Sandburg, was chairman of the Chicago Com­mittee
for the centennial.
There were Swedes in the Midwest earlier, but they did not
begin arriving in number until the late 1840s, settling in places
like Andover and Bishop Hill, Illinois; New Sweden, Iowa;
Lindsborg, Kansas; Chisago and Isanti counties, Minnesota; and
Pine Lake, Wisconsin; forming "Swede Towns" in cities like
Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
A centennial observance was originally suggested in 1940 at
the eightieth convention of the Augustana Lutheran Church in
Rock Island, and the Swedish Pioneer Centennial Association
was created after a meeting December 1, 1945, in Chicago.8 Dr.
Conrad Bergendoff of Augustana College was named chairman.
Banquets, festivals, and other programs were held in May and
June, 1948, throughout the Midwest, and Chicago's was the
biggest.
235
Two months after the Stadium rally, in August, 1948, Vilas
Johnson and others met to talk about continuing the interest the
centennial had sparked. The result is the Swedish Pioneer His­torical
Society, which on October 15, marks the thirtieth an­niversary
of its nonprofit incorporation under the laws of the
State of Illinois—"Established to record the achievements of the
Swedish Pioneers."
The name was Johnson's, the slogan Bergendoff's.4 A Swedish
Historical Society of America existed from 1905 to 1934, when
it disappeared and its library was acquired by the Minnesota
Historical Society.5 Johnson's model was the more successful
Norwegian-American Historical Association founded in 1925.6
Johnson became first president of the new society and Carl
Sandburg was named honorary chairman, a post he held until
his death in 1967. ("Of course," he wrote Johnson in 1948, "I
will be your Honorary Chairman. . . . How proud my Mother
would be. Her boy, honorary chairman, honorary chairman. . . " 7
Nils William Olsson, now executive director of the Swedish
Council of America, who had been executive secretary of the
centennial association, took on similar duties for the society.
Johnson envisioned a goal of 5,000 members,8 and while the
society has approached only half that, its accomplishments have
been many.
In July, 1950, it published the first issue (a modest 32 pages)
of the SWEDISH PIONEER HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, and the follow­ing
December it published its first book, A P i o n e e r i n N o r t h w e s t
A m e r i c a , 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 5 8 : T h e M e m o i r s of G u s t a f U n o n i u s , Part I,
translated by J . O. Backlund and edited by Nils William Olsson.
This issue of the QUARTERLY is the 114th, including a 20-year
Index in 1971 and a special double issue in 1974. The QUARTERLY
up to this issue has published 6,012 pages of articles, letters and
reminiscences, as well as bibliography, book reviews, and news
items, and has been called "the most important and continuing
source of information about Swedes in North America."9 It is
cited frequently in books as a reference.
A second volume of the Unonius memoirs was published in
1960, and since then nine more books have carried the society
imprint. They include such contributions to immigration schol­arship
as H . Arnold Barton's L e t t e r s F r o m t h e P r o m i s e d L a n d :
236
S w e d e s in A m e r i c a , 1 8 4 0 - 1 9 1 4 (1975), Paul Elmen's W h e a t F l o ur
M e s s i a h : E r i c J a n s s o n of B i s h o p H i l l (1976), and Sture Lind¬
mark's S w e d i s h A m e r i c a , 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 3 2 (1971).
In 1979, the society will publish an English translation of Lars
Ljungmark's D e n S t o r a U t v a n d r i n g e n (The Great Emigration)
under the title, T h e S w e d i s h E x o d u s , and in 1980, in conjunction
with the Swedish Council of America, O. R. Landelius' S w e d i sh
P l a c e N a m e s i n A m e r i c a . The 1978 book is P e r s p e c t i v e s o n
S w e d i s h E m i g r a t i o n , proceedings of a conference at the Uni­versity
of Minnesota, Duluth, edited by Nils Hasselmo. C l i p p er
S h i p a n d C o v e r e d W a g o n , a collection of essays from the QUAR­TERLY,
is being published by Arno Press.
Over the years, the annual meeting of the society has grown
from an evening program, to a dinner program, to an afternoon
and dinner program, and there have been various special events.
Sandburg spoke again at a Swedish Pioneer rally on June 6, 1953,
at Lane Technical High School, attended by 2,000 persons.1 0 A m ­bassador
Gunnar Jarring was the guest at a tenth anniversary
dinner February 1, 1959, and Wilhelm Moberg, author of T h e
E m i g r a n t s , U n t o a G o o d L a n d and T h e L a s t L e t t e r H o m e , spoke
at the annual dinner January 29, 1966, on "Why I Wrote the
Novel About Swedish Emigrants" ("The reason is very simple:
I wanted to write about my relatives in America") . 1 1
A flight program was begun in 1960, and to date the society
has sponsored thirty-three charter and group flights to Sweden.
A Swedish Committee was formed in 1963,12 and in 1978 the
society counted some 100 members in Sweden as well as mem­bers
in forty-three states and the District of Columbia. (The so­ciety
became truly international early this year when Yasushi
Ueda, a doctoral candidate at Doshisha University in Kyoto,
Japan, became a student member.)
One of the society's first aims in 1948 was "to collect and pre­serve
documents and general data of historical interest," but
other projects took precedence until the early 1960s, when an
active archives committee set to work.1 3 In 1966 in the QUARTER­LY,
Selma Jacobson (current archives curator) reported receipt
of the largest collection to date, the papers of Carl Hjalmar
Lundquist, former assistant corporation counsel of the City of
Chicago.1 4 In 1968, North Park College (where the society has
237
had its offices since 1950) made space available for the archives
in the basement of Nyvall Hall, and it was opened to the public
the following April.
As the society completes its first thirty years, one of the goals
is better and larger quarters for the archives. Other goals are
increased membership, greater financial support, and expanded
program.
Vilas Johnson, who served as president until 1954, was hon­ored
at the thirtieth annual meeting in April as the recipient
of the society's first Sandburg Medal. Other presidents have
been the late E. Einar Andersson,1 6 editor and publisher of
S v e n s k a A m e r i k a n a r e n - T r i b u n e n ; Dr. Bergendoff; Franklin D.
Scott, emeritus professor of history at Northwestern University;
Wesley M. Westerberg, former president of Kendall College, and
Paul A . Varg, professor of history at Michigan State University.
Dr. Varg was first editor of the QUARTERLY, followed by the late
E. Gustav Johnson,1 0 Dr. Scott and the present editor, Arnold
Barton.
NOTES
' In a letter to the writer, March 8, 1978.
2 Vilas Johnson, "Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967: An Appreciation," S w e d i sh
P i o n e e r H i s t o r i c a l Q u a r t e r l y (hereafter SPHQ), Vol. XVIII, No. 4 (October
1967), pp. 187-193.
3 Conrad Bergendoff, "The Beginnings of the Swedish Pioneer Centen­nial,"
SPHQ, Vol. X X , No. 4 (October 1969), pp. 161-169. See also Vilas
Johnson, "Reminiscences of the Swedish Pioneer Centennial," in the same
issue, pp. 170-179 and Per Sandberg, "The Swedish Pioneer Centennial
1948—Three Decades Later," Swedish Council News, Vol. I, No. 2 (Spring,
1978).
4 Selma Jacobson, "Twenty Years of History, 1948-1968," SPHQ, Vol. X X ,
No. 4 (October 1969), pp. 180-191.
"Roy Swanson, "Our Predecessors," SPHQ, Vol. I, No. 1 (July 1950),
pp. 12-21. For a bibliography, see E. Gustav Johnson, "Articles Published
by the Swedish Historical Society of America, 1905-1934," SPHQ, Vol.
XIV, No. 3 (July 1963), pp. 127-135.
"Jacobson, op. cit. For a history of the N. A. H. A., see Odd S. Lovoll
and Kenneth O. Bjork, T h e N o r w e g i a n - A m e r i c a n H i s t o r i c a l A s s o c i a t i o n,
1 9 2 5 - 1 9 7 5 (Northfield, Minn.: N. A. H. A., 1975).
'Johnson, op. cit.
8 Vilas Johnson, " A Challenge to Americans of Swedish Background,"
SPHQ, Vol. I, No. 1 (July 1950), pp. 3-8.
6 Alan Swanson, S w e d e s i n N o r t h A m e r i c a (Philadelphia: Balch Institute
Reading Lists No. 22, 1976). For more about the Q u a r t e r l y , see H. Arnold
Barton, "The Editor's Corner: Twenty-Five Years—One Hundred Issues,"
SPHQ, Vol. XXVI, No. 3 (July 1975), pp. 143-144.
" " T h e Swedish Pioneer Rally," SPHQ, Vol. IV, No. 4 (October 1953),
pp. 25-27.
238
"Wilhelm Moberg, "Why I Wrote the Novel About Swedish Emigrants,"
SPHQ, Vol. XVII, No. 2 (April 1966), pp. 63-77.
"Report of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting, SPHQ, Vol. XIV, No. 2
(April 1963), pp. 94-96.
"Report of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting, SPHQ, Vol. XVI, No. 2
(April 1965), pp. 106-110.
1 4 Selma Jacobson, "Pioneer Archives Receives Valuable Collection,"
SPHQ, Vol. XVII, No. 3 (July 1966), pp. 154-156.
1 5 " E . Einar Andersson: In Memoriam," SPHQ, Vol. XII, No. 3 (July
1961), pp. 87-88.
1 6 H. Arnold Barton, " E . Gustav Johnson: In Memoriam," SPHQ, Vol.
XXVI, No. 2 (April 1975), pp. 117-118. See also Paul Eimen, " E . Gust,"
p. 119, and E. Gustav Johnson, " A Scholarly Testament," pp. 120-127, in
the same issue.
This article appeared in a feature edition of the Norwegian-
American newspaper, V i n l a n d (Evanston, 111.), entitled "A
Salute to Sweden," on 13 April 1978. It is reprinted here by
permission.
239